On hoops and lesser matters

Tuesday Truths: Caucus edition

(Des Moines Register)

One question I’ve entertained with respect to the NBA concerns whether it’s truly as open to unforeseeable performances as (to adopt a timely benchmark) the Iowa Caucuses. Not that any shortcomings in this direction would be the NBA’s fault, mind you. If you have to blame anyone or anything, blame math.

No other professional sport has such a ridiculously small number of draft picks, yet a tiny pool of 30 first-round guys, augmented annually, constitutes a far larger share of the league (60 percent, give or take) than in baseball or football. These structural imperatives dictate that you’d have to be crazy or supernaturally courageous or both to wander off the stereotype reservation with a first-round pick. You or I would be no different in a GM’s shoes, but a fair portion of lived experience outside of professional sports suggests there has to be a tremendous opportunity cost being incurred here in the area of unforeseeable performance.

My hunch is that if the NBA ran the Iowa Caucuses, last summer the league’s front offices would have had a draft-like barrier to entry up all along the state’s 1,000-mile rectangular border (a beautiful wall, if you will). Candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders would have been sent away months ago on the grounds of being a mere reality TV star and a socialist, respectively. The NBA experts would have told the two men confidently that there’s no way on earth that they could finish in second place in Iowa come February 2016. After all, neither candidate fits the profile.

Welcome to Tuesday Truths, where I look at how well 55 mid-majors are doing against their league opponents on a per-possession basis.

A-10: Archie now has defensive bragging rights at Miller get-togethers
Through games of February 1, conference games only
Pace: possessions per 40 minutes
PPP: points per possession
EM: efficiency margin (PPP – Opp. PPP)

No, the Flyers’ recent opponents haven’t exactly been Oklahoma and Notre Dame in terms of offensive capability. Still, when you’ve limited the last three teams you’ve faced to just 0.70 points per possession, it’s fair to say your defense is playing pretty well. And while part of this performance can be chalked up to luck (those three opponents shot just 21 percent on their threes), Miller’s ability to use 6-foot-11 freshman Steve McElvene in spot duty as a shot-blocker par excellence suggests the UD D will still be strong even when the A-10’s threes start dropping again.

BONUS note for the A-10 schedule-maker. Next year let’s see Dayton and VCU play each other before March 5. Twice, even. Thanks.

Last week I asked whether James Madison was separating itself, along with Hofstra, from the CAA crowd. Well, that answer would be no — the Dukes promptly went out and lost to UNC Wilmington and William & Mary. When it comes to trying to find breakout team performances in the incorrigibly undifferentiated Colonial, the lesson is never try.

So I’m off on new venture, celebrating aberrant individual feats. And no one’s feats in the CAA have been more aberrant over the last 30 days than those of Hofstra’s Rokas Gustys. The 6-foot-9 sophomore has now recorded nine consecutive double-doubles, and in Colonial play he’s making 70 percent of his 2s while controlling the boards at both ends of the floor. Now that Joe Mihalich has apparently flipped Gustys’ switch to “beast” mode, however, the fact that the sophomore is a career 42 percent shooter at the line is becoming far more prominent in the minds of opposing coaches. As the CAA race comes down to its final eight games, deciding whether or not to hack Gustys will be one key element in the mix if for no other reason than this league plays its fair share of close games.

Between the leagues shown here and the ones trotted out each Tuesday at ESPN Insider, I’m tracking possessions in 12 conferences. And of those 12 leagues the Valley’s the only one where I feel like, barring a massive wave of injuries, the title chase is already effectively over. Wichita State has this thing locked up tight.

The Shockers just played the toughest test on their 18-game schedule — a road date at Evansville — and their numbers here didn’t budge in the slightest. There’s a larger performance difference between Nos. 1 and 2 (WSU and the Purple Aces) than there is between Nos. 2 and 8. With no equivalent in the Valley to last season’s strong Northern Iowa team and with Gregg Marshall’s guys doing what they do yet again, this race is already wrapped up. (Though, as always, Arch Madness will hold serious bid-thief potential because Wichita State will correctly have one eye on the next tournament.) I can’t say I’m going Sharpie because Seth Davis came up with that idea first, so let’s just say I’m going Billy Packer. (Catchy, right? Take that, Seth!) It’s over.

Last season New Mexico averaged exactly 60 possessions per 40 minutes in conference play, so the fact that the Lobos are now well north of 70 means Craig Neal has made a conscious choice to go fast. For all we know UNM would be just as good at last year’s pace, but be that as it may the Lobos are greeting February atop the per-possession standings in a down year for the Mountain West. New Mexico’s outstanding shooting (take a bow, Elijah Brown and Tim Williams) has been enough to offset a simply ghastly performance where holding on to the ball’s concerned.

Too bad for fans in Albuquerque that the weightiest portions of the previous paragraph are “per-possession” and “down year.” These are not the real standings, and San Diego State has a two-game lead on the Lobos in pursuit of a No. 1 seed at the MWC tournament. And the fact that the conference is aberrantly weak this season means we could be looking at a one-bid year for the Mountain West. In previous seasons any team near the top of this table was a lock for the NCAA tournament. That is not the case in 2016. If you want to go dancing, go out and win the conference tournament next month in Vegas.

I’m not yet sure that 2016 is really so inhospitable to the sport’s traditional powers — North Carolina, Kansas, and Michigan State are all ranked in the top 10 at the moment — but it is certainly the case that some high-profile news pegs have imparted that flavor to our current hoops discussion. Duke is absent from the AP top 25 for the first time in eight years. Kansas may relinquish any claim to the Big 12’s regular-season title for the first time in 12 years. And, in this same disruptive spirit, I suppose it’s at least conceivable that Gonzaga could miss the NCAA tournament for the first time in 18 years.

Right now the Bulldogs are showing up in the mocks in some very bubbly double-digit-seed territory, and there’s a fair likelihood that Mark Few’s team will stay there waiting for any kind of elevator to lift them to safer ground. What’s mildly disconcerting about this picture for Zag fans is that this season’s WCC doesn’t have many such elevators. Certainly a win at SMU a week from Saturday would, for the moment, provide Gonzaga with a nice boost where the three-letter antique monstrosity is concerned. Then again what if the Bulldogs do beat Larry Brown’s guys but then the Mustangs — a team facing a postseason ban with a really, really short bench — fade as the season winds down? Win or lose, this discussion could be with us for a while. Meantime classify the Zags’ incredible streak as imperiled.